INOVA Announces the Release of G3i™: a New Cable System that Delivers High Performance and Operational Efficiency

HOUSTON, March 5, 2012 /CNW/ - INOVA Geophysical announced today the release of G3i™, a highly flexible and rugged land recording system. The mega channel recording system offers the industry a highly-portable technology that provides support for conducting a wide range of land seismic surveys, including high density wide azimuth acquisition for the world's most challenging environments.

Based on years of product development experience in seismic acquisition technologies, INOVA has developed a powerful, cable-based recording system that offers advanced ground electronics, power-down-the-line (PDL) technology and high productivity vibroseis (HPVS) capabilities. G3i supports over 100,000 channels and can be used to capture 2D, high density 3D and time-lapse 4D data. The addition of this new cabled land system will offer seismic players in the industry another alternative for cable-based recording that meets a broad scope of operational demands, allowing contractors to achieve a higher rate of return on their assets.

Several key features provide immense benefit to geophysical contractors, including its rugged, aircraft grade aluminum enclosure and high-strength polycarbonate exterior for maximum durability. Power management and deployment logistics are simplified because the G3i system utilizes PDL technology to evenly distribute battery power to multiple field station units using the power supply (PSU) and fiber tap (FTU) units along with standard 12V batteries. In addition, G3i's ground electronics consume only 235mW of power per channel measured at PSU.

G3i was also designed with the "do more with less" philosophy in mind; contractors can take advantage of having four analog channels in a 1.2 kg compact, remote acquisition module (RAM) station, as opposed to using the existing single channel stations offered by competitors. With less field equipment to transport, maintain, and troubleshoot, surveys can be operated more efficiently.

G3i was initially field tested in November of 2011 and later in February of this year for High Productivity Vibroseis techniques in an oilfield in western China by BGP, the largest land geophysical contractor in the world. Both tests met BGP's high standards of excellence.

Mr. Glenn Hauer, Senior Vice President of Product Management stated, "The technology advancements we've made to this system have been widely driven by our customer needs in the field. For High Productivity Vibroseis operations, we knew our customers needed a high capacity system using power-down-the-line technology to help reduce battery dependency, and with less equipment to transport, crews can work more efficiently during high channel count acquisition. We designed a system that would provide all of this, plus the ability to perform in-field maintenance to the ground electronics quickly and with minimal system downtime; this helps reduce overall operational costs."

Steve Bate, President and Chief Executive Officer of INOVA added, "I am confident that the G3i system will offer our customers a greater range of flexibility and a more powerful system choice for high channel count operations amongst industry competitors. Over the last several months we have worked closely with our partners, our customers, to complete the development testing of several new technologies, and the launch of G3i gives our customers more options to meet their operational and equipment needs. This is just one more example of how INOVA has worked together with our customers to build technology that gets the job done."

INOVA Geophysical Equipment Limited is a leading provider of land geophysical technology, including source and source control systems, cabled and cableless land acquisition systems, and advanced seismic sensors. Managed as an independent company, INOVA is a joint venture owned 51% by BGP (a wholly owned subsidiary of China National Petroleum Corporation) and 49% by ION Geophysical Corporation (NYSE: IO). Additional information about INOVA is available at www.inovageo.com.

About BGP

BGP is one of the world's leading geophysical service companies, delivering a wide range of technologies, services and equipment to the oil and gas industry world-wide. They are engaged in seismic data acquisition, processing, interpretation, GME and multi-client surveys, equipment manufacturing and software R & D. More information about BGP is available at http://www.bgp.com.cn/